Connecting Scales for Improvising on Guitar / Soloing

welcome this lesson is about improvising on guitar  soloing on guitar and specifically connecting   scales how to seamlessly connect between scale  shapes when improvising on guitar we'll talk   about how many of us get stuck in fretboard  positions when improvising on guitar soloing in   specific scale shapes then we'll talk about a  specific way to go about connecting scales as one   of the solutions to that problem and lastly we'll  do a little jamming to test out our guitar soloing   once we're free from being stuck in scale shapes  i've put out a bunch of videos on how to practice   different scale types on the guitar and learn  all the positions of those scales this lesson   is about how to apply that knowledge to real music  real improvising on guitar there's a link in the   description to a playlist of all those scale  videos if you're trying to work on any particular scale i'm jared borkowski from  soundguitarlessons.com on this channel   i talk a ton about music theory and mapping  out the fretboard and doing those things in   a really practical hands-on way so we can have  more control over music and express ourselves   more freely if you're new here please  subscribe and hit the bell so let's say   you know the five scale forms of a minor  pentatonic so you might know this one really well because we all kind of learned that one  first and uh eventually try to break out   into other places on the guitar so maybe  you've kind of worked on mapping out the   other ones there's one over to the left of  it there's one over here to the right of it   over here and you're working on  improvising and maybe sounding pretty good   and uh but feeling a little stuck when you're  when we work on positions in this way and i'm   a big fan of the scale forms the scale  positions that's why i made that whole   series of videos on mastering those but we it's a  very useful and kind of logical way to understand   the fretboard great to practice that way but  then we do want to see the whole fretboard   and break out of that and connect between those  scale forms so this is kind of a very specific   strategy to be able to do that we're not just  going to suddenly be able to if we don't find a   way to practice it and that's general practice  advice by the way just practicing something uh   and hoping something else happens as obvious as  that sounds that's how we often practice right if   you practice over and over again your scale  forms and improvising hoping you'll someday   connect between them but you're not practicing  a specific way to connect between them it's not   likely to happen maybe little by little but it's  not going directly to the problem so so again   staying in one position is not a bad thing  it's actually really important to be able to   play something musical that we like and feel  good about in one position but of course we   want that freedom to if we desire to shift around  and play on the guitar so my point there is that   switching skill positions is not going to  make us sound better but it just gives us   more options right so if we are not sounding good  in one position or not feeling like we like what   we're playing in one position switching around  uh shifting between the positions is not going   to improve that that's kind of more going  to be about phrasing and tone and time and   and what musical ideas we're playing but of  course we do want that freedom we want all   the options possible we want to keep kind of  mastering the fretboard so so again let's say   you know those five positions and i got those  on the screen here for you just so you can   you can see them and if you don't know them  then check out my video on the five positions   of the pentatonic scale and there'll be a link to  that in the description so here's what we want to   do if we find ourselves stuck in that way and  we're just not as free with it as we want to be   i want you to know very clearly where all the  roots are okay so we'll take this first scale form   and the way that i practice scales and recommend  practicing scales already targets the root so   again i went over that in those other videos but  let's just say okay you have uh what you need to   to kind of see the root really clearly and then  you're improvising coming back to the root a lot just at least as a study to know  where the root is to get used to   that sound and i'm not saying that sound is better   it's a great way to start with your improvising  and kind of have that as a home base to go to so   once you know where all the roots are in all these  scale form positions so like this scale form here   root root root root kind of seeing  all of those within the scale form okay so do whatever you need to to map those out  and use my root to root method exercise from the   other videos if you need to but the point is you  get you've got to see where those roots are now   here's this is very simple but again it's it's  a specific way to practice this that gets the   problem figured out if you're thinking too much  in a position we just want to recognize that   every root is part of two different scale forms so  we're going to use the root as this kind of we're   anchoring our view on the root and we're going to  use it as a portal kind of this this this thing   you can jump through to get to the other side now  again this might seem really obvious but have we   been doing this intentionally i mean technically  you could do it with any note of the scale but   use the root um so this root right here and you're  going to say again well yeah i already knew that   but are we using that to practice with it so this  root here is obviously part of this scale form   and then it's part of this scale form so what  we want to do is use those as kind of our portal   to switch our view because what's  happening is we're seeing all this connect   this collection of notes here and we're not seeing  all this collection of notes here so you have to   consciously have your perspective shift so let's  say i'm practicing here and i'm on this root okay and now i want to get  over to the other position   um there's lots of ways to do  this so this is just one solution   okay well now i'm going to intentionally think  of this being the root of that other scale form   okay so now i'm on that root now you'll see how  i'm doing this very slowly but when you when you   do this exercise i get to this other route well  now it's part of the one i'm in but it's on the   other side on the right side of it you have  the next position up so you can start to do   it really seamlessly and really fast even if you  get used to this so okay now i was playing here   okay and i switched my view over okay now i'm on this root here and obviously  that's the scale form to the left of it   and that's the scale form to the right of  it so you don't have to play the root even   i'm not saying you need to land on the root  and then play over because that would be   too too prescriptive and i love prescriptive i  think with practicing that's what we need but   you're using just your view of it  so let's say i'm practicing here not playing the root at all but i'm recognizing  visually that the root is right here visually   and kind of having a spatial sense of  it so i don't even need to look at it   this is related to how we can kind of practice  mentally without playing the guitar which i'll   do a video on in the future um where i'm very  aware of this right here that root i can kind   of sense it kind of just know where that is much  like you know you don't you're not looking at your   your hand if you're looking away but you're  aware very aware of where it is right um   or you're not if you're sitting at a table and  you look up and you're not you're not looking at   the table you still have this sense of like oh  yeah it's right it's right there i was just you   know my hand was just on it or something um so so  again whatever way you want to describe that we're   so aware of these roots now let's say i'm not  even playing the root and i'm still using that   as again i call it anchoring my view using that as  my view so now i'm going to play this note up here   i went from four to five of the scale because  i'm so aware of how that fits around the root this skill is is useful this kind of anchoring  the view is is useful in so many ways so if you   practice it here it'll actually come in handy  with using um chord shapes chord inversions   uh different kinds of voicings and stuff like  that when you're playing harmonically as well   so that's it that's really um the technique of  course i like to always make sure that we have uh   kind of a step-by-step way to practice it  because that's the general idea you can   play around with that but step by step way to  practice it would just be basically improvise   in the first position when i say first position  i just mean whatever's furthest left of the neck   there's not really a label to to each one and  then use that perspective shift to switch over   and then find the next root that's overlapping  the one you're on and the next one and use that   percent perspective shift just switch over to that  next one and then do the same thing you find that   root and use that to switch over and if it doesn't  sound great yet don't worry about that you know if   it sounds kind of like this is weird because i  just played this note and then i'm going to that   again and it's not what you wanted to hear that's  good to experience because you'll work out what   you want to hear later this is just when you're  practicing one thing practice one thing this   is just this ability to switch and then you can  once you're really comfortable with that you can   concern yourself more with like all right  now what musical idea do i actually want to   play and express um on the guitar so again  um i think we i think we often get stuck   on wanting to sound good when we're practicing  something else that's this might sound weird but   some stuff we need to practice isn't about  sounding good yet it's about a certain skill   that is going to be very useful when we go  back to wanting to you know play something   really meaningful to us so a bit of kind of  practice strategy advice there so once i'm here   then i'll see that root and switch over to  that switch over to the not that next scale   form and then work your way back down at all  and again best advice i can give you is just   don't sweat if it doesn't sound like you wanted  to yet or like amazing like a great guitar solo   right you're working on on a certain skill you're  working kind of a muscle that then you can use in   the real music situation so now i'm just going to  go through and demonstrate a little bit of jamming   switching between the scale forms and now since  i just explained everything that's going on in my   head with how to do it you can kind of think  about it from that context and even if once   you get it down you're kind of doing it quickly  and intuitively because you want to think about   you know the actual music while you're playing  um it still comes from that one skill so as i   play around with this stuff you can know oh  okay that's how the shifting is happening so the general principle here is very powerful  it's just you know we need to very clearly   identify and know what the gap is something we're  missing what the problem is then we need to find   a way to very specifically practice that not  just hope it gets better by practicing a bunch   of stuff but like really target it and that's  what we did here so breaking out of um you know   old habits that seem to just kind of happen over  and over again when we feel stuck finding a way to   switch it up is really important so that's one of  the ways to do it when you're improvising another   way is to switch up the actual notes that you're  playing the order of the notes that you're playing   so we don't just sound like we're playing a scale  up and down all the time we want to skip around a   little more that's using something called melodic  patterns very very powerful very cool for for   mixing up our note selection choice i have a free  pdf for specifically practicing the pentatonic   scale with the top three pentatonic scale melodic  patterns that helps our solos sound a little less   like we're just going up and down scales and  sounds kind of more melodic and more cool so   um great that's a great way to map out these  scales so we don't just see what node is next we   can see the whole thing and jump to anything  so i made that as a free resource that's   really cool and i highly recommend it it is in a  link in the description you'll see it down there   if you want to grab it and have a little kind of  sheet in front of you to practice with i put out a   video every tuesday and i love making little free  resources like that uh pentatonic scale pattern   one things that you can kind of have in front of  you and tangibly use when you're practicing so   next week i'm actually gonna do a video that's a  walkthrough of a super thorough chord chart that   i made that i talk about on this channel a lot  so if you've seen other videos you've heard me   talk about that but i'm going to do kind of a  demo walkthrough of how that chord chart works   it's going to be really cool if you're interested  in music theory and a bunch of chord options or   chord extensions or you know playing in multiple  keys the same progressions check that video   out that'll be next week hope to see you there  thanks for watching take care happy practicing

Channel: Sound Guitar Lessons With Jared

Views: 77,187

Keywords: improvising on guitar, connecting scales, guitar soloing techniques, connecting scales guitar, guitar scales lessons, guitar scales for beginners, guitar scales practice exercises, guitar scales for soloing, guitar scale exercises, guitar scale tutorial, guitar soloing exercises, soloing on guitar, soloing with scales, soloing with pentatonic scale, guitar soloing tutorial, guitar soloing for beginners, guitar soloing, pentatonic scale, guitar solo lesson, lead guitar, #SGL

Id: P4m4vVAcmTw

Length: 13min 15sec (795 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021